A number of researchers (Martens, 1982; Hannaford 1995; Sallis et al. 1999) have found that regular physical activity contributes to improved school performance. For example, in one study, 500 Canadian students spent an extra hour a day in physical education class and performed better on tests than children who were less active (Hannaford 1995). A neurophysicist, Hannaford states that because movement activates the neural wiring throughout the body, the whole body, and not just the brain, is an instrument for learning:
––Students, Harris School, Eugene, OR
Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets us impact the brain—and so the body—of everyone we interact with, just as they do us.
Even our most routine encounters act as regulators in the brain, priming emotions in us, some desirable, others not. The more strongly connected we are with someone emotionally, the greater the mutual force. The most potent exchanges occur with those people with whom we spend the greatest amount of time day in and day out, year after year—particularly those we care about the most.
During these neural linkups, our brains engage in an emotional tango, a dance of feelings. Our social interactions operate as modulators, something like interpersonal thermostats that continually reset key aspects of our brain function as they orchestrate our emotions.
The resulting feelings have far-reaching consequences, in turn rippling throughout our body, sending out cascades of hormones that regulate biological systems from our heart to immune cells. Perhaps most astonishing, science now tracks connections between the most stressful relationships and the very operation of specific genes that regulate the immune system.
To a surprising extent, then, our relationships mold not just our experience, but our biology. The brain-to-brain link allows our strongest relationships to shape us in ways as benign as whether we laugh at the same jokes or as profound as which genes are (or are not) activated in t-cells, the immune system’s foot soldiers in the constant battle against invading bacteria and viruses.
That represents a double-edged sword: nourishing relationships have a beneficial impact on our health, while toxic ones can act like slow poison in our bodies.
Emotional Intelligence focuses on a crucial set of human capacities within an individual, the ability to manage our own emotions and our inner potential for positive relationships. Here the picture enlarges beyond a one-person psychology—those capacities an individual has within—to a two-person psychology: what transpires as we connect.
Take, for example, empathy, the sensing of another person’s feelings that allows rapport. Empathy is an individual ability, one that resides inside the person. But rapport only arises between people, as a property that emerges from their interaction. Here the spotlight shifts to those ephemeral moments that emerge as we interact. These take on deep consequence as we realize how, through their sum total, we create one another.
In 1995 when Emotional Intelligence was published, the field of social and emotional learning, or SEL, was just beginning to evolve. Only a handful of well-designed, school-based SEL programs could be found. In most cases schools had put those programs in place as part of a "war on…" a particular problem, such as reducing dropouts, substance abuse, unwanted teen pregnancies, or school violence. Some of those programs were quite effective. Others yielded disappointing results.
As a William T. Grant Foundation study has revealed, the active ingredients in the programs that worked were largely the same, no matter their ostensible target problem. The best SEL programs were implemented throughout each year of schooling. They shaped the entire school climate, and they used developmentally appropriate lessons. They also taught children specific social-emotional skills like self-awareness, self-management, empathy, perspective taking, and cooperation. In short, they were lessons in emotional intelligence.
In the intervening years, scientific data demonstrating the effectiveness of SEL programs as interventions that help lower the risk of various problems young people face, and that increase their skills in addressing life’s challenges, have been accumulating steadily. But along with the case for SEL as a prevention and promotion strategy, another benefit has emerged: social and emotional learning facilitates academic learning. Thus, it offers a much-needed and very timely aid to schools in fulfilling their main mission.
Why should helping students in the social and emotional realms of their lives enhance their academic learning? If we think back to our school days and remember a teacher we enjoyed, we almost certainly will bring to mind also a classroom environment where we enjoyed learning. From the perspective of neuroscience, that optimal learning environment reflects an internal brain state well attuned for learning.
Most of us have assumed that the kind of academic learning that goes on in school has little or nothing to do with one’s emotions or social environment. Now neuroscience is telling us exactly the opposite. The emotional centers of the brain are intricately interwoven with the neurocortical areas involved in cognitive learning. When a child trying to learn is caught up in a distressing emotion, the centers for learning are temporarily hampered. The child’s attention becomes preoccupied with whatever may be the source of the trouble. Because attention is itself a limited capacity, the child has that much less ability to hear, understand, or remember what a teacher or a book is saying. In short, there is a direct link between emotions and learning.
Multiple research studies reported in this book demonstrate that social and emotional learning programs pave the way for better academic learning. They teach children social and emotional skills that are intimately linked with cognitive development. In the ideal learning environment, children are focused, fully attentive, motivated, and engaged, and enjoy their work. Such a classroom climate can be one benefit of SEL. Similarly, caring relationships with teachers and other students increase students’ desire to learn. School-family partnerships help students to do better. And, students who are more confident in their abilities try harder.
The Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning - The center of the SEL movement; a guide to high-quality SEL programs.
The Leadership Center at Hunter College - Trains leaders in education in emotional intelligence competencies.
Center for Social & Emotional Education - Training and resources for the field.
Project Exsel - An online resource for social and emotional learning
Illinois State Board of Education Standards for Social and Emotional Learning